For 45+ years Subway has been dedicated to matching the right guitar to the right player at the right price, usually focusing on making, repairing, and cobbling together vintage styled instruments for the mid-range user who wants something personal, custom, and unique at a modest price. However, in addition Subway has always traded in upper end vintage and custom instruments, and we are now opening up this page to present our rarer, ritzier inventory for the first time. Check back often, as this page will be updated with an ongoing series of posts as we oil the hinges on the vaults and ready our oldest vintage stock for sale this holiday season:

Here’s a selection of 3 great guitars we’ve rustled up in enough quantity to offer serious holiday bargains for guitarists on a budget or gift givers who realize that if you know what you’re looking for, an inexpensive guitar can be a triumph of the musical condition that will last for ages and keep sounding better every year…

Here’s the Recording King RPH05 0-sized 12-fret parlor guitar with Kluson tuners, in the style of a ’30′s Gibson. These guitars have a solid top, and sound rich, mellow and balanced, great for fingerpickers, great for moderately sized people who don’t want a foot-deep dreadnaught or jumbo billowing out in front of them. Great spacing for picking with clean, clear note separation while still feeling comfortable and natural, not just like a classical baseball bat. Great sleeper guitars, sound better every week as they’re broken in. Solamente $200

Here’s the JG615, a great solid-top dreadnaught with high quality tuning machines. The price point for high quality entry level starting guitars is dropping, and this guitar will sound great right away and will only get better as it ages and the lacquer breaks in and the spruce top begins to flex up and down with the player, accentuating playing dynamics with progressively more nuance and increasing frequency response. $140

$140 JG615 – dreadnaught with solid spruce top and high quality tuning machinesamazing tone at great price

And here’s the JG100 triple-O guitar, compact and comfortable, a great sounding and playing first guitar for $70. These have a slimmer profile and bulge out from the body a little less for the modestly sized among us who don’t want to feel dwarfed and may need to lean over to look at their fretting hand a little while they play

We’ve got a great big batch of stuff, always being made, fixed, modified, reconfabulated, rescued and returned into the musical mainstream of usable instruments. Here’s a variety of new and vintage guitars to drool over this holiday season:

I knew Stu Feldman back in ’68 during the Prune Music days in Berkeley, kicking around with Randy ‘Prune’ Smith and Dave Kessner. Stu was playing soulful bass with groups like Deacon and The Suprelles and Motor. He went on to play with John Girton, Maryann Price, the New Riders Of The Purple Sage, Bobby McFerrin, Musslewhite, Huey Lewis, and many more. In addition to his stellar bass playing, over the years Stu worked as a music store clerk, producer and music videographer. He’s gone now and his estate has enlisted me to help find new homes for some of his instruments, with the proceeds going to his family. There are some amazing pieces of vintage gear here, and a lot more studio gear as well.

So long, Stu. We miss you.

good clean Ampeg

backside air

modern workingman's classic at a reasonable volume

luscious fender reverb for all your ambient needs

Ovation. On a stand. $150

nicely curved backside

down to the cents

beautiful old dano

a nice pair

the real deal

sleek, classic curves

incredibly musical amp, from sparkly to growling at the stroke of a pick